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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24530350">Facing your problems? Couldn't be Martin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatricebutnotreally/pseuds/beatricebutnotreally'>beatricebutnotreally</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Angst, Drinking, Gen, Martins mother is mentioned but not in detail, Mental Health Issues, Young Carer, Young Carers, i have not decided where in canon this sits. maybe s1, no comfort as of yet but its not Too much angst so its ok, this is pure projection. i am just projecting and im not ashamed of that.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:42:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24530350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatricebutnotreally/pseuds/beatricebutnotreally</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a young carer is… complicated to say the least, aside from the things easily found on google, like the statistically lower GCSE results, the rampant mental health issues and lack of support, and a lot of quantifiable statistics. What you’ll never get from that google search is a specific brand of anxiety found in long time young carers. One that Martin knows well and is determined to ignore. Until he can't anymore, and that's ok. Because he has people to help him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or: Martin being a young carer is very important to me and I want him to have young carer friends. So I will give him some</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood &amp; Sasha James &amp; Tim Stoker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. New Connections</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>my credentials for writing this: I'm a young carer. I'm 17. I care for my mother (as well as my father) and would like to run away to a cottage in the Scottish Highlands with my eldritch horror of a boyfriend. Ok but seriously I've been a young carer since I was in year 4 (age 8/9 ppl not in England) and I am big time projecting onto MArtin instead of talking about my issues.</p>
<p>All descriptions of young carers groups is going to be based off the one in my small northern town! Sorry if it doesn't represent ur version of young carers groups!</p>
<p>unbeta'd who knows might delete this in the morning </p>
<p> </p>
<p>CW: While this chapter doesn't talk about MArtins mothers general awfulness it mentions when his mother illness got worse and talks about feeling ashamed/embarressed by being a young carer and talks about being patronised or pitied by people for being a young carer along with failing to complete work because of being a young carer. Have fun stay safe!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He supposes, if you trace it back, it starts with the institute. Because of course it would, Why wouldn’t it? Everything in Martin’s life, from the flesh worms trapping him in his flat to this moment right now, being drunk as hell on a park with some of his oldest mates, can be traced to that building and its damn eyes. </p>
<p>This particular moment could be traced back to a Wednesday evening, to Martin walking out of the building with Sasha and Tim and hearing his name yelled nearby, and before he had even a second to recognize that accent and the way it dragged the ‘m’ in his name out, a tall blur barreled towards him from the opposite side of the street, crashing into him with a laugh and a hug so familiar and comforting Martin instantly recognized Ben. HIs look of terror instantly gave way to relief as Ben started his tirade “Martin! Bro where have you been, there’s only so many times Lauren can say you’re too sick to come before I realize you’re just straight-up ignoring me, what’s that about man? Any way you gotta come tonight-”</p>
<p>Stopping for possibly the first time to catch his breath, Ben looked up, for the first time looking at the building Martin was exiting, grinning he turned back to Martin “wait, this is where you’re at? Mate that’s genius I guess our plan- mmph” before he could even consider spilling Martins biggest secret to his coworkers Martin covered Bens mouth with a forced chuckle and turned back to Sasha and Tim, who was looking on in amusement and bafflement, respectively.</p>
<p>“Um. Ben this is Sasha and Tim, my coworkers,” gesturing at Sasha and Tim Martin turned to Ben and while giving him a pointed stare carried on “and this is Ben. an old friend.. From highschool” Ben returned Martins stare and scoffed, reaching out and grabbing Shasa and Tims hand and shaking them rapidly.</p>
<p>“Right. Well. Lovely as it is to see your ugly mug Martin, I’m off. To group. You know, the one you’ve been avoiding for months, full of your friends.” Grabbing a pen and pulling Martin’s hand towards him he scribbled his number on martins palm before slapping it smiling and walking off with a “here’s my number cos I feel like you ‘lost it’, lovely to meet you two, but I’ve got some pizza to nab.”</p>
<p>Martin watched him go before turning towards what he knew would be two smug faces demanding to know everything, he contemplated going after Ben and finally maybe actually turning up to group, but a hand grabbed his arm and started dragging him back "No you don’t. We are going to the pub and we are gonna talk about this" one of them called out to him. Giving up he shook off the arm and followed behind listening to the two banter and bicker all while he thinks of lies he can use to get out of this. The voice of one of his former group members rang through his head, lecturing him about shame or something or other, but by at that point, he was sat on an ugly chair staring down a bottle of cheap beer and was too busy necking the bottle to listen to it.</p>
<p>Look ok it’s not like he’s ashamed or anything, its just. This will be the first people he’ll be telling that wasn’t a supervisor or teacher asking why he hadn’t been able to do any work for the past week. But he can do this, its just. Stressful. Slowly he put the empty bottle and looked up to Sash and Tim watching him intently. </p>
<p>“Well?” Sasha asks, she’d never push Martin to answer of course but the way she says it will always make something in him want to tell her anything she wanted no matter the consequences, it’d make her a good investigator Martin thinks absentmindedly, as he does often.<br/>
So once again he took a deep breath and began.<br/>

“So. Um, my mum has always been sick it was mostly manageable, I guess. But when I was in college it got… worse. I ended up becoming her full-time young carer, I guess a tutor must’ve of realized what was happening cos next thing I know I’m being referred to young carers. It was great, it was a group of people mostly my age who understood what it was like, and truthfully- “<br/>
Martin paused and looked back at his bottle wishing he could blame him being so open on the alcohol despite the meager amount he’d drunk, and took a breath and continued “erm, yeah truthfully the people I met were my first real friends. And yeah Ben was one of them, there was a small group of us, ‘the lads’ the activities leader was fond of calling us. We were always getting in trouble but we loved group despite its underfunding, it was great. Felt like home should feel like-” quickly realizing he was rambling on he blushed and looked back at the table, mumbled an apology, and stopped talking. </p>
<p>If you gave him £100 and told him to guess Tim and Sasha’s reactions, he probably could talk for hours on how they would be confused, full of uncomfortable questions asking about his mum’s illness and why they didn’t just hire a nurse, and would have the Look™. </p>
<p>If you are lucky enough to of never had to be on the receiving end of the Look™ you should count yourself lucky. The Look™ is what martin called that specific mix of pity and confusion that people give when you tell them you are or were a carer for a family member, it is usually accompanied by a mumble of being ‘brave’ and how ‘challenging’ that must be, it is one of the most patronizing and infantilizing looks you can receive. He’s even gotten it from the workers at his mother’s care home. So as you can guess the idea of having to see his two closest, and admittedly only, friends looking at him like that is enough to nake Martin considered packing up and going home. </p>
<p>He’s wrong of course. The second he looks up he sees Sasha looking at him with slight pity, not the pity found in the Look™ but a look of pity that tells him Sasha just feels guilty that Martin didn’t feel comfortable talking about something so personal to him and she feels like she forced him to talk about it.</p>
<p>Shifting his gaze over to Tim for a second he saw, something unrecognizable in his eyes, a look of deep thought, (probably his first and only one Jon would snark if he wasn’t holed up in his office at that exact moment). Martins, not an idiot he knows that saying he’s a young carer isn’t life-changing, earth-shaking news, but he also knows that people like to not know about what actually happens when a parent gets chronically ill, learning that it isn’t all Disney montages and cheerful smiles, it sucks and it’s upsetting and the carers need support groups. The look on Tim’s face is the exact look of someone realizing how exhausting it is being a young carer and reconsidering how he views his friend, in a good way of course.<br/>

Face flushing from embarrassment at being so open for the first time since he'd stopped attending group, he stood up, mumbled something about needing the loo and made off towards the dingy stalls.</p>
<p>He actually did have a piss, mostly from anxiety but also because he’d drunk a whole lot of beer very quickly during his word vomit. So coming back, shaking his hand to dry them faster, he sat down looking nervously at Sasha and Tim, the latter still in deep thought.</p>
<p>“So why haven’t you?” Sasha said finally after what felt like an eternity.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Why haven’t you gone back to the group,” Sasha spent a second gathering her thoughts before continuing, “if you felt so comfortable there, why have you been avoiding it?”</p>
<p>“I- uh. It’s… hard to explain.” Flushing again he looked down at his bottle and wished he had picked up another bottle before coming back.</p>
<p>Tim looked up suddenly, “Well try. I- We want to understand it. You’re my friend Martin, I- Sorry, we want to help you be happy and that means knowing you, even the hard to explain bits.” Tim looked at Sasha who nodded in agreement and they turned back to the nervous man sat in front of them, peeling at the label on his beer bottle.<br/>
Sighing he looked up,<br/>
“Ok. But we are going to need another round.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Mother's kinda suck (but not as much as social interaction)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Martin talks about his problems for once and the other two wrangle him into facing them.</p><p> </p><p>CW for the beginning talking about mental health issues specifically within the young carer community and for a feeling of self doubt throughout the chapter! Also Martins mother is Mentioned but they dont go into detail with her general shittiness</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Still dont have a beta reader and my new laptop is kinda weird so i cant fix spelling mistakes =/ sorry! hope its still enjoyable!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being a young carer is… complicated to say the least, aside from the things easily found on google, like the statistically lower GCSE results, the rampant mental health issues and lack of support, and a lot of other quantifiable statistics fitting the struggles of young carers into nice neat graphs for people to "ooh" sadly at.<br/>
What you’ll never get from that google search is a specific brand of anxiety found in long time young carers. Those who have been caring for almost as long as they can remember, much like Martin has, often feel like they aren’t enough, like since they hardly register their duties anymore they shouldn’t attend support groups (why should he, Martin reasoned, there are people who had it worse than him, why should he attend their support groups). Of course this is nonsense and every carer, from those who pop round their nans a few times a week to those who have to bathe their brother is welcome at the support groups. It doesn’t stop Martin from worrying though, no matter how many times the activities manager reassured him, he always felt like he didn’t deserve it.</p><p>He wouldn’t get into all this yet though… After all he’s only had two drinks, so he can hardly blame his openness on being drunk yet, reminding himself he doesn’t need to spill his life story, just provide a simple explanation.<br/>
He looked up at his only friends waiting faces “uhm well… i guess… she's in a care home now. I don’t…. Need to go? Yeah. I would feel bad turning up when I’m not even her carer anymore.” he waved his hand lamely as if that made any difference to that frankly lackluster explanation, Martin already knows that his face would be a bright red that betrayed his embarrassment and a glace at Tims smirking face his suspicion is confirmed. Sasha looked at him with that mix of expectancy and amusement, and he knew he hadn’t gotten out of actually talking about it.<br/>
“Ok and well. It- It's not even like it's an actual carers group, they don’t have one connected to the charity it's more like- right it's just a facebook group of adult carers and- people who used to be carers. But it’s not like i should go anyway cos like I wasn’t even a good carer and like-” his self-deprecating ramble was cut off by Tim shoving his hand over Martins mouth and grinning.</p><p>“Absolutely none of that Marto, you did the best you could, you were just a kid you shouldn’t of had to have all that responsibility-”</p><p>“Tim- that- that isn’t fair you can’t blame my mum for that she-”</p><p>“I’m not blaming your mum Marto. I’m blaming them~” waving a hand vaguely upwards Tim grins as Sasha groans realising the anti-capitalist rant about to come, “The bastards in their ivory towers shouldn’t be leaving literal children with no training to look after the incapacitated. Its disgraceful. All that money going to their stupid salarys and here you are left with life long mental health issues because they couldn’t give one jot about the sick and disabled. Its disgraceful Martin, I just think that-”</p><p>“Anyway,” Sasha turned to Martin and talked over Tim, who was still ranting about the government. “What Tim was trying to say, is that you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself Martin, you were under an intense amount of pressure and was just young. It’s obviously left you with anxiety so i really think you should go. Get in touch with your friend, what was his name? Max? Josh? Whatever, I think you should get back in touch and go to one of the meetings.”</p><p>“I- I just, I don’t think I can Sash, there are people there who have it so much worse and I-” Before he could even finish his sad ramble Sasha interrupted </p><p>“Martin Blackwood. You will go to the meeting. Once, thats it. Thats all im asking, go for once, sit in the corner sipping water the whole time if you want. Your only friends can’t be your co-workers Martin, especially not in a career like ours, fatal as it is. Now-” Passing him another round she grinned “Lets get wasted yeah?”</p><p>Slamming his bottle down he sighed and nodded, to the tune of Tim’s cheers.</p><p>Rubbing his eyes and shifting on his feet, Martin double and triple checked the address on his phone, sighed and walked in. </p><p>Instantly he was hit by a wave of laughter and music, not an overwhelming wave but one that edges towards him slowly, seeming like it could swallow him whole but was too small to do any actual damage but giving the stress of a large one nonetheless.</p><p>The restaurant the group was meeting in was simple, plain in that almost hipster but with significantly less plants look. It served supposedly authentic thin crust italian pizza, and even if the night was a bust hopefully the pizza will be edible enough to not make it worthless. A sever led him down to the event room on the ground floor of the restaurant the group had rented, it was built to look like a beer garden with fake grass and garden furniture, the open door leading to the alleyway behind the building destroyed the illusion but Martin appreciated the fresh air after the stale smell of beer permeating the room. Ordering a plain cheese pizza and some ice water Martin sat in the corner of the room, took a picture and sent it to Sasha to prove he’d gone, and prepared himself for an hour of boredom before he could make an excuse and leave and never come back.</p><p>Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending how you look at it, someone recognised him. Calling his name, Martin was brought over to a group of people already laughing and talking with him as if they’ve known him for years. A couple did but that wasn’t the point, he awkwardly tried to socialise laughing when it seemed appropriate and gasping when he saw the others do so. All in all it was going quite average, enough that he could still feasibly have a reason not to come back.</p><p>Until Ben, Ben stepped into the fake garden, saw Martin, and once again barrelled towards him at the speed of light almost knocking him over and greeting him faster than Martin was able to comprehend. </p><p>Being from around Liverpool, Martin is used to people talking too fast for people down south to understand, but unfortunately for him, moving to London a few years ago has gotten him accustomed to the slower, more measured speech found here, so hearing Ben’s scouse accent in full Martin was lost. Completely and utterly lost. What he could pick up was littered in dialect Martin had simply forgotten (or repressed).<br/>
“Fuckin’ ‘ell its fuckin’ chocca innit Mar’in, am well chuffed you came I woulda been devo'ed if you ‘adn’t come for another week-” Noticing Martins bewildered face, Ben sighed and began speaking slower and with less slang “Fuckin’ southerners man they’ve well rotted your brain, can remember when you could talk at almost the same speed as me, even if you are from Manchester.. anyway man I'm really glad you're here, nice to see a familar face even if it is your ugly mug!" Laughing to himself, Ben took Martins arm and guided him over to the bar, ordering Martin a Stella and himself a shandy chatting the whole way. Soon Martin stopped shifting from one foot to another waiting for it to all go wrong and slowly started to come out of his shell. Talking with not only Ben but with the people from earlier (turns out they were people from the college he briefly attended before dropping out).</p><p>It felt like old times. A room full of people who, while they may not even care, they knew and understood what hes been through. Wether they still are or moved on a while ago they know. </p><p>And just like the old times, Martin began to smile.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is probably it :D i had a long idea formatted but. a whole lot of shitty shit regarding my own shit mother and my young carer duties have happened and now thinking abt being a young carer for too long in a negative way Gives Me A Panic Attack(tm), so i shan't be continuing sorry gang :(<br/>Fun fact this was going to be posted a day after the first chapter was posted and then i got kicked out for a few days and when i came back broke my laptop !</p><p>if you were wondering after this Martin will continue to meet with the group slowly regaining confidence about him being a young carer, he will bond w/ jon over having not the greatest maternal figure, he will become friends with Ben and cause havoc having fun for the first time in years. He has many sleepovers with the archive crew and when prentiss happens its found out early on cos he misses the carer group and Ben thinks hes tryna dodge again and goes up to visit him. Martin writes alot of poetry around his shit mother</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi ive been putting off posting this because I'm not the greatest writer and also because it is littlerallt just me self projecting onto Martin. Fun fact the google doc this is saved in is called "you cant stop me projecting onto martin: the story" also I've never posted anything on ao3 before I hope this is formatted right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Feedback is appreciated (and encouraged!) as I've never published anything I've written before!</p>
<p>U can find me on Tumblr at bforbeatrice and twitter at liveandletghost!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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